The Internet and information technology make electronic data one of the most important aspects of running a business or even personal life. Data applications and systems are used in virtually all industries in many different ways, but data generated by different applications and systems must be managed, interpreted, and exchanged.
For example, healthcare organizations often use many different healthcare applications and systems to perform various services, both internal and external to the organizations. Much of the information these applications and systems collect, such as data and documents, must be uploaded and shared among internal and external systems, but that information is often unstructured.
A challenge many healthcare organizations currently face is that each day they generate a large amount of unstructured content, which may be in native form and stagnant and unusable by the other applications. For example, unless a human identifies scanned document, a digital photo, or electronic file, such as a PDF file, a healthcare application may be unable to identify the file, to whom it belongs to, or what to do with the file. Managing unstructured data in a healthcare organization is often expensive, time-consuming, and prone to error.
Another challenge healthcare organizations face is the difficulty to exchange unstructured files between entities or individuals on different networks, such as different healthcare organizations, patients, and vendors. As a result, the files are often printed and faxed to the recipients, which is not only time-consuming and expensive, but also leaves holes in the electronic patient record-keeping, which may cause security and patient safety risks.
The methods and systems below solve these and other problems.